Saturday, October 22, 2016

The problem with most "Runic Divination" books and "experts"

It seems almost every new book you find
on runes these days is about ever fancier and more complicated ways
to do runic divination, i.e. runecasting. There are a lot of "experts" writing divination books full of baseless arm-waving and claiming that everything they preach is "ancient" or based "directly on old Norse practices" when it's nothing of the sort. One term I particularly
hate seeing bandied about is “rune spreads” - as if runic
divination is somehow in any way related to the “spreads” in
Tarot cards or other such neo-Hermetic foppery.

Whatever way the early Indo-European peoples
used staves, lots, sticks carved with symbols, etc. for
divination (and yes, I said Indo-European, not just Germanic –
Herodotus records the Scythians doing the same thing), we can know
for sure that this had nothing whatsoever to do with post-Christian
Renaissance inventions such as Tarot or reformed Hermetica. So no
“spreads” please.

But whatever you call them - “casts”,
“methods”, or something else, the means of runic divination are
essentially modern interpretations of alleged ancient practices.
Because at the end of the day, we simply have little choice but to take Tacitus,
Herodotus, Pliny, etc. at their word – and they weren't
particularly honest fellows from what we know. Herodotus is even
nicknamed the “father of lies” since there is so much dishonest
and divisive micro-racist propaganda in his writings, most of which
were meant to indicate how Greeks were “superior” and to
denigrate “barbarians” (i.e. the other 99% of Aryan-descended
peoples – Persians, Scythians, Dahae, Getae, Guti, Celts,
Hyperboreans/Germanics) as stammering vermin only fit to be slaves.
The very tolerance of slavery itself as “acceptable” in the minds
of Tacitus and Herodotus was in fact the antithesis of all genuine
Arya-derived culture, but that is a long and complicated
matter for another day.

So were runes ever divinatory?

So what do we really know about the
usage of runes in ancient times, from sources other than old
Greco-Roman propaganda writers, the rather cryptic Lore of the Eddas,
surviving linguistic rune-cognates and root-words, or the (sometimes
reliable) visions of modern mystics?

There are no proper historical texts
(at least not by modern definitions of the word 'historical')
regarding how the runes (i.e. specifically the symbols known as
Futhark) were used, other than the clearly altered and
partially Christianized rune poems of the 8th-13th
centuries CE. The only mentions of runes in the Eddas are either
used to mean 'secrets' (the literal meaning of rune) or the
cryptic carved symbols encoding them (which we call “runes”
today). The Eddas and even the more “down to earth” Sagas, which
refer to family histories and more worldly events including the use
of magick by known historical figures, still do not make mention of
runes being carved on pocket-sized stones or wood “lots” and
thrown or drawn from a bag for divination. The 18 rune-verses of the Hávamál describe “songs” and do not literally refer to these
magickal spells or devices as “runes”, though the preceding
verses are all about Odin's discovery of the runes, as well as how he carved them and taught them to other beings - and thus it is
usually understood that the 18 spells which follow this narrative are a reference to these
same runes that Odin discovered through his self-sacrifice on the
World Tree Yggdrasil. Does that mean that they must refer to
the Futhark or letter-runes that we commonly know as “runes”
today? No, but it's the best clue we have to go on.

The historical uses of runes that we do
have surviving physical evidence for are from archaeological finds
such as large standing rune-stones, weapons and household items
carved with runes, a few rare wooden inscriptions, votive metal
objects buried with the dead, etc.

So where does the idea of
small wooden rune-tiles or portable “rune-stones” come from? And
where do we get the idea of using them as tools for divination? The
answer may surprise you – modern authors.

Writers like Edred
Thorrson (Stephen Flowers), Freya Aswynn, Diana L. Paxson, Nigel
Pennick and (*cringe*) Ralph Blum, have written many books about rune
divination, from consulting the runes to resolve looming challenges or difficult decisions, to using them for all manner of questions.

Did they base their methods on
historical works? Unfortunately, no. Could they have done so in the
first place? Again, sadly, no. There just isn't any ancient text
offering a detailed explanation of portable rune sets being used for divination. When Tacitus talks about the Germanic tribes cutting
branches into lots inscribed with symbols, or when Herodotus mentions
the Scythians (whom we can tie in with the origins of
proto-Celtic, Cossack, Gothic, and some Indo-Iranian groups) using
“linden tree branches” as lots for divination – we do
not have any proof, in a literal sense, that these were “rune sets”
as we understand them today. The symbols are never described in these
accounts, nor are their meanings. Nor is there any indication that these people ever carried a personal set of divination staves or stones with them, or any explanation of what was done with those "crafted-on-the-spot" divination branches once the divination ritual was finished. Were they kept to be used again? Thrown away? Burned? We simply don't know.

So with these Greco-Roman accounts
(which, even discounting the agendas and bigotries of their authors,
were still based on third-hand hearsay in most cases), what we
are seeing might be observations of runic divination similar
to modern methods – or it may be something else, some other
symbolic system or practice entirely. And the Greco-Roman sources are
notoriously vague with the details. You could almost imagine
Tacitus and Herodotus like modern border guards spying on their
“barbarian” foes with binoculars, or playing a game of
“telephone” with a long string of underground contacts, trying to
figure out what the “barbarians” are actually doing without
having seen any of it personally!

So of course the current batch of “rune
experts” writing books have to look to more recent sources for
their ideas.

Runic divination is (most likely) a modern practice - just accept it!

The basic idea of specifically using
Futhark runes, i.e. letter-runes, as a magickal means for
divining the flow of Wyrd, and what may be coming in the
future, is a concept that comes from early 20th century writers like
Guido von List. Already a long-established and practiced mystic and poet, List claimed to have received the complete divinatory and linguistic meanings
of the runes, which finally made the Hávamál and all ancient runelore fit together, in a series of dreams and visions while temporarily blind following cataract surgery, with his inner senses thus greatly heightened. It was largely List and
his early followers (such as Kummer, Marby, Peryt Shou, Lauterer, and Gorsleben) who
developed the idea of rune-casting as an actual magickal practice, using the 18 Armanen runes promoted by List as a reconstruction of
the original 18 Odinic “rune-spells” of the Hávamál.

The most basic concepts of modern rune
divination, such as splitting the runes into three “aetts”,
carving them on small tiles of wood (or bone, or even stone),
interpreting upside-down or sideways positions as “murk-stave”,
“merkstave”, or “negative” meanings, and even the idea of the
three-rune “Norns' cast” symbolizing the past, present, and
future of a particular problem or matter, are all derived from the
writings and practices of List and the other Armanists. Of course List and his followers didn't make these ideas up out of thin air - they based them on the cosmology and Lore of their own Germanic ancestors' ancient Indo-European culture. But nonetheless, these basic elements of rune-casting are still uniquely Armanen-derived practices. Even if more recent authors
and books using these concepts don't mention the Armanen rune row at
all (and often they don't, preferring to only work with the “Elder”
Futhark despite their meanings being far more vague), they
still copy many Armanen ideas. Of course, they don't like to admit it or give proper credit to Guido von List.

Sure runic divination is a modern practice, but so what? The Armanists who invented it in the early 1900s were still using the wisdom of the Eddas and Sagas to design their methods - which is far more than I can say for many more recent "rune authors".

Really, if one wants to understand how modern German rune-masters (who were actually well-versed in their ancestral traditions and folk-spirituality) understood the Runes, these
early 20th-century Armanen authors would be the ones to read – not the
watered-down books of post-1960s eclectic writers like Paxson or Pennick. Some of these Armanen books are very rare, many of them long out of print, but a fewonlinecopies and Englishtranslations do exist.

Now these were some genuine Runic authors who actually got Germanic culture.
Maybe because it was their own ancestors' culture and they were taught to honor it?

You would be far better off reading these books by List and his contemporaries, or even the works of his modern interpreters like Edred Thorsson, than the "mainstream" eclectic authors like Paxson and Pennick. Thorsson, for all his quirks, has actually written some pretty solid research on both the Armanen system and the more "traditional" rune rows (this does not mean I agree with Thorsson on all things or all the time - it simply means that when it comes to runes specifically, he has done some solid work, and gives a far fairer and more informed treatment of Armanen runology than many other recent writers). Though it isn't a
guarantee that you're 100% accurate to how the ancient Teutons used
runes, and even though one could perhaps arrive at other divination
methods by looking at runes from a Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, or
Frisian cultural context, one can still argue that the Armanists of the Guido von List society at least had that cultural awareness,
and in some cases secret family connections with the old ways - which
many of the eclectic “rune experts” of today
(predominantly British and American) lack entirely, and worse yet,
make no effort to research and respect.

Thus what you get with Pennick, Paxson,
and even Kvedulf Gundarsson in regards to runic divination, is a bit
of a mishmash of ideas from both Armanist sources and still more
recent (and far less culturally informed) “neo-pagan” sources,
which are sometimes in open contradiction to one another. And in
those instances the recent authors seem to just pick and choose as
they see fit – and then call it “Viking” or “ancient”
divination. Sure it is... if you think a photocopy of a
photocopy is equal to an original! Even so, these authors are still far preferable to what comes next...

We're Heathens - wait, we're also Druids - wait, we're also... well you get the idea.

Increasingly I see the big internet booksellers overrun with the “every rune does
everything” books of even lower-quality "neopagan" authors. These people make even Pennick and Paxson look consistent. You know the type - the sort of authors who abandon Ásatrú and Germanic Heathenry altogether and openly claim “Wiccan”
or “Druid” leanings, yet still use rune-divination and try to claim it's a "Druid" or Celtic practice. They also often make nonsensical claims about the runes themselves - such as the claim that any rune can be used for any ritual purpose (i.e. that any rune can be used as a love-rune, or a healing-rune, etc.) even when this openly contradicts the distinct meanings of many of the runes given in the Old Norse, Icelandic, and Anglo-Saxon rune poems (or for that matter the Hávamál when applied to Armanen runes). For example anyone who recommends using the Thurisaz/Thorn rune as a "love rune" is clearly either a liar or an idiot - are you trying to attract a potential mate, or utterly destroy them like a troll struck by Mjolnir? Same goes for using Nauthiz/Not in a love-ritual, do you really want to cast a spell of neediness and potential misery on your prospective lover? Plus treating all runes as basically interchangeable catch-all symbols pretty much defeats the purpose of using a full set of runes in the first place. Why not just use a single symbol for all your rituals, if that's your attitude? Why runes? Why not a sun-wheel, or a swastika, or even a Celtic Triquetra (since most of these people claim to be following Celtic/Druid spirituality, wouldn't that make more sense for their "catch-all" ritual uses than a Germanic Futhark of multiple runes whose distinct meanings they don't even take seriously anyway?)

By the way, if they believe that all runes are interchangeable and every rune can stand for anything, how do these authors even do runic divination? How do they decide what a particular rune-cast reveals? Well, mostly they just fall back on the modern hypothetical "meanings" commonly attributed to the "Elder" Futhark, which are basically a crude mix of a few of List's Armanen meanings, some bits from the medieval rune poems, and a lot of pure speculation. But in so doing, they totally contradict their own claim that "every rune means/does everything".

I have seen so many of these self-proclaimed
“experts” make statements that are so far off-base regarding the
history and meanings of the runes, with such assertiveness, that I
could have easily puked every time I saw one of them in a video
“lecturing” on their totally false suppositions about runes. I
can't even count how many self-proclaimed “Druid shamans” or
“wolf spirit shamans” I have seen, claiming to know the true uses
of runes, inventing all sorts of New Age nonsense about “Celtic
runes” or Druids having used runes (different culture, different
symbols, no runes - how hard is that to understand?). Not that there's anything wrong with following a Celtic or "Druid" path if that's what calls to you, but if you want any sort of historical credibility you won't be using any system of Germanic runes for divination - and to claim (as Wiccans often do) that the ancient Celts or their Druid priests traditionally used runes at all, let alone for divination, is simply a historical falsehood.

Indeed the biggest challenge for Druidism today is that it's nearly all a modern invention - there is far less written history to go on than for Ásatrú. We know almost nothing about the original Druids - the Romans exterminated them in Gaul so thoroughly that no record of their actual practices is left, and nothing has been passed down even in isolated villages. In Ireland precious little was written about them by the invading Christians beyond the usual propaganda, and nearly all we have left is the Ogham stave letters - which may have been used for divination, but are unrelated to Germanic runes.

Indeed the only time any sort of "runes" or rune-derived symbols appear in Celtic regions is when they were conquered by the Saxons or the Vikings! In this regard the presence of rune inscriptions in Ireland or Scotland is not all that shocking, but modern Wiccan and "Druid" authors completely miss the real story. It was Saxons and Vikings who carved these runes and brought them to the British Isles, not the earlier Celtic population. If the native Celts there ever used runes, it would only have been after being influenced by the Saxons and/or the Vikings. The so-called "Coelbren Runes" of Wales are actually a fraud, invented by the infamous 18th century forger Edward Williams (a.k.a. Iolo Morganwg), and are not found on any genuine ancient Celtic artifacts.

Older Celtic cultures, such as the Gauls or Galicians, appear to have used a number of different modified alphabets, depending on whether they were living near Greeks, Etruscans, or Romans. The Celtic, or more correctly, Gallic peoples, were at one point extremely widespread across Europe, hence why there are regions named Galicia in both Spain and the Ukraine, the Gaelic Isles in Scotland, and of course Gaul in France. None of these alphabets are runes - they don't correspond to any Germanic rune row. And there is no proof that any of them were used for divination or even magick in general, or for anything beyond merely writing down information.

But of course since runes are ancient and European, many ignorant pop-spirituality authors just assume they must somehow be Celtic, and in any case they tend to have a "who needs rules" mentality, and see fit to mix and match almost anything they like from any culture and call it "Celtic", "Nordic", "ancient", etc. and pretend that it is all historically proven pagan practices. Many of
these pop-pagan “experts” even try to mix in Native American and
Siberian concepts and motifs into their rune-casting techniques, and
then claim this is “authentic rune magick”!

*CRINGE*

Mein arsch it is. It's about as
authentic as claiming Taco Bell is real Mexican food. Or claiming
that real Italians make pizza just like Domino's. Not that there's
anything “wrong” or “bad” about Native American spirituality
perse (again, if that's what speaks to you) – what's bad is when people copy bits and
pieces of it and call it something else entirely, usually for profit.
What's bad is when people claim it's for “everyone” and then try
to market it in over 200 countries by mixing it with whatever unrelated cultures they think will sell in those countries. It's not “cultural
appropriation” when you sincerely practice a culture in its context
and respect the customs and interpretations of its native people,
even if it's not your ancestors' culture. It is cultural
appropriation when you recklessly rip off parts of it for a quick
buck – when you steal Native American myths and claim they are
Germanic, or when you stick runes on a Navajo medicine wheel or an
Aztec calendar and claim that this is a “Nordic wheel of fate” or
some other such syncretistic psycho-babble. And that's precisely what
many of these “neopagan” cranks dumping worthless misleading
“rune books” on the market are up to.

And then just when you think things
can't get any sillier, you have the complete pop-spirituality conmen
like Ralph Blum – who are on a whole different level of crazy. For
these people, no amount of rampant syncretism and dilution of
cultures and practices is off limits. Inventing fanciful rune
“spreads” plagiarized from Tarot card layouts?
Acceptable! Cooking up a set of totally off-base and fake rune meanings
based on random passages quote-mined from the I-Ching? Encouraged!
Inventing your own extra “blank rune” and cannibalizing the
meanings of Ansuz, Uruz and Perthro in the
process? You can be the first!
Ripping off Christian prayers and even the Alcoholics Anonymous
“serenity prayer” and claiming they are somehow runic or even
compatible with rune-casting and a (Heathen) runic spirituality? Hey,
why not claim that Odin wrote the Ten Commandments while you're at
it! No lie or cultural travesty is off-limits, right?

Blum claimed he completely changed the
modern reconstructed meanings of the “Elder”
Futhark (which in turn are usually based on a few of List's cultural theories
and a lot of more recent speculations) to suit his own feelings
and whims, because he felt that the runes “resembled” the
I-Ching and its workings and were thus an expression of the same
ideas (a concept which has no basis in List, rune poems, or any
Indo-European source!) He even changed around the order of the runes on this pretext. Where in Midgard did he get the idea that Chinese culture or divination is in any way relevant to runes? We may never get the answer. We do know that in the process of writing his fanciful and highly overhyped and over-glitzed books, he totally bowdlerized and disrespected both.

He also seems to have ripped off basically every cheesy, worthless new-age psychobabble book ever written about everything from addiction recovery to healing from trauma and fixing broken relationships, and repackaged it in a very thin veneer of "runes" (which of course means his personal distortion of the runes, not anything culturally relevant to actual Germanic rune meanings or Lore).

Seriously? It's as if John Gray and Margaret Murray had a love child...Arrrrrgh, the sheer pop-foppish cheesiness of it all, IT BURNS!!!!!!!!

Other pop-spirituality hacks have
reinterpreted the runes as a “Nordic Tarot” and mostly copied off
the work of Blum and modern Hermetic and quasi-Masonic orders. Many of these fake books simply rip off the arrangements of modern Tarot card "spreads" and apply them verbatim to rune readings, conveniently changing their names to "Odin's Cross", "Thor's Cross" or "Freyja's Love Cup" to fool the naive into thinking that these are actual Norse/Germanic divination layouts invented by the Gods themselves! They are betting that their customers only have a casual interest in runes and are unfamiliar with Tarot or other occult systems - but anyone who is familiar with Tarot can tell that these books are scamsand simply are ripping off Tarot methodology and dishonestly repackaging it as"runic". These "rune spreads" are utter hogwash, they have zero basis in either recorded history or Lore. Indeed the only runic divination methods that have even a slight hint of a connection to ancient Germanic culture or Lore are the three-rune "Norns" and "Germania" methods, and the scatter-cast method which uses the entire Futhark (whichever Futhark you prefer to use).

Of course since Futharkic rune divination specifically is a modern practice with no definitive proof of historical usage, you could argue that even making up your own rune-reading layouts is just as valid as using the "Norns" and "Germania" methods, since Tacitus didn't specify that the "past, present, and future" lots used by the Germans were any sort of Futhark runes, nor is there any evidence that the Germanic tribes didn't also have other divination methods for whatever sort of lots or staves they were using. Of course the "Norns" and "Germania" methods do draw on Germanic culture, so they are potentially more valid than other methods. They draw on the primal Germanic understanding of Wyrd, and on the Germanic concept of tripartite time cycles and levels of reality (Urðr, Verðandi, Skuld = Past, Present, Future = That which was, That which is becoming, That which may become = Arising, Being, Passing Away toward new Arising, etc.) Nonetheless, you could potentially invent your own more expansive layouts with many more runes drawn, and still attempt to "ground" them in the culture, though that would be needlessly complex as the "Norns" and "Germania" methods are literally usable with any sort of binomial decision or dilemma (i.e. should I go to war today, or not go to war today? - to use a very basic ancient example). One could expand the Skuld rune position into two or more runes if the decision in question has multiple simultaneous sub-options, but in real life this scenario is very rare.But here's the thing - even if you argue that making up your own complex rune casting layouts is just as "valid" as the classic three-rune methods, that is still very different from the typical eclectic rune-author's tendency to simply copy off of Tarot cart "spreads", whose arrangements have absolutely no relevance or basis in Germanic culture. Interestingly, Armanen divination (which many of these Tarot-plagiarizers either hypocritically dismiss as "fake" or ignore altogether) is a lot more conservative and traditional when it comes to the simplicity of its casts - it predominantly uses only the three-rune "Norns" and "Germania" methods.

But Tarot-plagiarism is far from the end of it for pop-spiritualist hucksters in the post-Ralph Blum era. Some
of these writers even throw zodiac horoscopes, Voudou, Santeria,
Kabbalah, UFOs, “ancient astronaut theory” and Nostradamus into their "rune books", and
at the end you are left scratching your head and wondering what any
of this has to do with runes, Odinism, Ásatrú or Germanic spirituality! Thus
what you get with most modern self-proclaimed “rune-experts” is
pure fantasy and frivolous window-shopping from all sorts of
non-runic and non-Indo-European sources. But of course they claim
it's all legit since they all use the “Elder” Futhark (as if any
one runic system is some sort of catch-all gospel – ironically a very
Christian and un-runic perspective).

But "Modern" does not have to mean "Fake"!

Now just to make
things clear, despite all the BS that is written about runic
divination, I do not believe that runic divination per se
is invalid. Not at all! I don't claim that the runes cannot be used
for divination or that they never have been – indeed it's always
possible that Tacitus was referring to some sort of carved
Futhark runes in his account of wooden divination lots – the key
word being possible. It's just that the idea of using runes
for divination may also be a purely modern one, no older than
Guido von List, and not, as some authors would have you believe, a
well-established ancient tradition. And to truly be an honest
practitioner of runic divination, you have to be comfortable
with this fact.

That said, you can still honor the
ancient Lore and customs while using a modern magickal practice or
format. Indeed this is what the Armanen system was meant to do –
the work of List and the other early 20th century
Armanists is positively
ancient and “traditional” in content when compared to all of
the eclectic syncretist “rune books” of aimless psychedelic
new-age authors flooding today's bookstores! List and his followers,
whatever else they did, were at least culturally conscious about the
runes, tying in everything they could find in runic root-word
etymology with the Eddas and other Germanic Lore, and keeping their
extra-Germanic mystical inferences limited to Indo-European sources
only.

What the Eddas, Sagas, and other
ancient sources say regarding Germanic divination, mentions the
consultation of Volvar (clairvoyant women in touch with the flow of
Wyrd), the use of Seiðr
(channeling the spirits of other beings to gain hidden knowledge of
the past or future), and the reading of omens or signs in nature
itself – from the movements of a flock of birds after an inquiry to
the Gods or wights, to the behavior of nearby wild animals, to the
direction in which harnessed horses would run when given no
directions or prodding from a charioteer. There are many methods of
divination described in these ancient texts and none of them
explicitly mention the casting of runes in the sense of Futhark
runes. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that the Sagas include
everything there was to know about Norse divination, let alone all of
Germanic divination – just that divination may not have been the
primary purpose of the runes. The runes are mentioned in the
Eddas and Sagas as being used for some very different purposes (i.e. healing, enchantments, curses, protective spells).

Divination and augury is, at its
very heart, a personal experience. So long as there is a sufficient
cultural basis to relate to, some sort of context that on a
mystical level helps you tap into the experiences, archetypes, and
ideals of an ancient path, so that at least it does not feel totally
made-up and contrived, there does not need to be a 100% historical
background for it to work for you. But I wonder if this realization
is too painful for some people to wake up to. Or if people using
“mainstream” modern “Elder” Futhark divination practices are
aware that at best they are copied from methods developed only
about a century ago by the Armanen masters – and often times they
are not even that old or culturally informed.

It always
annoys me when people refuse to do divination with the Armanen Runes
or call them “less real” simply because they are a modern
reconstruction with a largely esoteric source, yet continue to
fanatically claim that “Elder” Futhark divination is somehow an
established historical practice dating to the dawn of history! (Meanwhile they are usually getting their so-called "ancient" meanings and divination methods for the "Elder" Futhark from those same debunked new-age "Druid", "Rune-Tarot" and "wiccatru" books whose "venerable heritage" goes all the way back to the oh-so-ancient 1970s - shocking, I know).

There is no actual proof of the "Elder" Futhark ever having been used for divination, or indeed for anything except carving inscriptions on huge boulders, and we don't even have any proof of their meanings at the time of those inscriptions - everything we "know" about their meanings has had to be reconstructed based on much later sources pertaining to the "Younger" and Anglo-Saxon rune rows, and ironically enough, on some of List's esoteric insights. And most of the pop-spirituality authors inventing "divination meanings" for the "Elder" Futhark today don't even follow those!

If anything, it's the Armanen runes
that were actually designed for divination, while still
preserving the essence of ancient Germanic Lore and revealing a great
deal about the esoteric underpinnings of rune meanings that only
survive in fragments in the Eddas, Sagas and rune-poems. The Armanen
system draws heavily on the Hávamál, the skaldic works, the
tripartite Germanic (and indeed, pan-Aryan) cosmology, and the
multi-layered linguistics of the Germanic tongues themselves, and
concentrates all this knowledge into a simple and powerful magickal
system which does not even need to borrow from any eclectic or
non-Indo-European system. In many ways the Armanen meanings are far
less speculative, in a cultural sense, than the
cobbled-together modern “meanings” attributed by so-called
historical purists to the “Elder” Futhark, for which no lore or
poems survive at all.

Indeed, the fact that no historical
runelore survives for the “Elder” Futhark is precisely what makes
it such a tempting target for all these two-bit pop-spirituality
hucksters. They stick any meanings or divination methods they
want on it, no matter how obviously fraudulent or plagiarized from unrelated cultures, and nobody can ever logically disprove them because
“you don't know that the Elder Futhark couldn't have meant
this!” Which of course is music to the ears of the wishy-washy "wiccatru" sheep who buy their books.

Nevertheless the only truly ancient (pre-Viking) mythology in the Germanic tradition which actually numbers a
set of runes, or rune-spells, or even anything approximating runes,
in verse, is the Hávamál which mentions 18 of them. This would make the 24 runes of the “elder” Futhark a redundant later
expansion. This is the conclusion Guido von List came to, and it was also apparently the view of the Viking-age skalds
themselves, who only produced the “Younger” Futhark out of
concern that the “Elder” Futhark was not the Eldest, and
needed to be refined back to its original and simpler Odinic/Eddic
form. The Viking-age Norse wanted to avoid a decay of the magickal language and a dilution of
Odinic spirituality itself, as had long since happened with the
Christianized Anglo-Saxons they conquered. Interestingly the 16-rune
“Younger” Futhark is almost as ignored by “mainstream”
rune-casters as the 18-rune Armanen system, which is simply its
modern Lore-based completion.

In my mind there's nothing wrong with doing runic divination (or rune-yoga, or any other modern runic practice) so long as you keep it culturally relevant, follow culturally informed and Lore-based meanings (both exoteric and esoteric) and you don't fool yourself that "this is the same exact way the ancestors did it". In this sense, the Armanen system is right on the money.

Essentially the whole issue of ancient vs. modern runic practices is like comparing the foundation of a building to the actual building - if you have a solid cultural foundation, your building will be far stronger and more beautiful, even if it has been destroyed and rebuilt differently every few hundred years. If you don't have a solid cultural foundation, your building will only be a flimsy piece of trash. And this is the real issue with comparing modern runic practices to ancient runic practices - there is no "one" type of ancient runic practices - indeed "ancient" Germanic culture encompasses several millennia of markedly different societies and practices. Inevitably the culture and even the magickal practices which were favored, evolved to suit the needs of the age, and thus Germanic Heathenry retained vitality and relevance because it was able to remake itself and evolve its rituals while staying true to its spiritual roots - something that orthodoxy-bound herder religions have had far more difficulty doing. Indeed, contrary to "mainstream" textbooks, Heathenry was never "peacefully abandoned" by Germanic peoples - it was only stamped out by force through centuries of torture, kidnapping, economic sanctions, genocide, and bribery by the Church and its mercenaries. And even then, Heathen culture survived under the surface, still remaking itself.

Every era of Germanic (and indeed all forms of Indo-European) magick and Heathenry, and even crypto-Heathenry, had their own unique qualities, different from what went before, and different from what was to come. There were the ancient sorcerers, the solar mystics, the megalithic architects, the Bronze Age bog-buriers, the Halstatter smith-magi, the Migration-age warrior-priests, the Teutonic stave-casters, the Vendel crop-sacrificers, the Viking-age butchers, the corrupt Kings, the ocean-crossing Explorers, the covert Icelandic folk-witches, the Vehmic Jarl-judges, the Huldar of the Schwarzwald, the Adalrunar of Bureus, and finally the Armanen Order.

And during all the time of their development, the mystics and explorers who eventually founded the Armanen Order and the Guido von List society were mastering not just the magickal abilities and methods of their medieval and ancient predecessors, but their own - distilling it down into one solid, devastating line of revived Runic practice which covered every area of modern life - physical, emotional, spiritual, mental. And Guido von List? List was merely the culmination of generations of secret Germanic rune-masters, mystics and orders before him. In many was, he was Runecraft itself!

And all the serious Runenmeisteren who came after him, whether they like to admit it or not, modeled their practices and deeds in several ways after his.

So there you have it. Once you can sort
out the culturally-based methods from the totally nonsensical
paperback-profiteer-made ones, runic divination is a perfectly fine
practice for someone who wants to honor the old ways. Especially if
you use a runic system that actually channels Eddic, skaldic, and
linguistic strands of meaning in a culturally valid way – even if
it's a new or reconstructed system.

Obviously there were other methods of
divination with far more historical documentation, but so long as you
don't fool yourself that you're doing exactly the same thing as the
Vikings, Saxons or Goths did centuries ago, a culturally informed runic
divination method (such as that of the Armanen system) is just fine. Remember, Germanic magick changed and evolved, just as the religious practices did. That doesn't mean "anything goes", but it does mean that not all change or innovation is bad. So long as it's rooted in the same culture, symbolism, cosmology and fundamental Indo-European values, modern runic divination (including Armanen divination) is simply the logical newest step in this long and vibrant history. Our runic path doesn't require fanatical stasis with regard to tradition - rather it only requires loyalty to the deeper immanence of the immortal Aesic and Vanic culture, leaving the tradition and rituals free to evolve to fit the changing needs and challenges of the age.

(Beware though, there is a vast difference between evolution of rituals and blatant bastardization of them - I am certainly not treating all the new-age "wiccatru" hucksters or their Tarot-plagiarized methods as an authentic "evolution" of Runic culture).

By the way, the fact that the Armanen runes are a recent reconstruction isn't all that unusual in an Ásatrú context. They are a modern reconstruction of the Odinic runes, intended for a modern reconstructed Heathenry, which is exactly what we have today. And runic divination is itself a modern practice (even if it uses ancient symbols) which at best can only claim to be a reconstruction anyway. And given that the Armanen meanings are still based on Germanic culture, word-roots, cosmology and Lore, debating over whether divination with any other rune row is any more "historically valid" is a moot point. This is why the Armanen runes essentially are traditional now in Germany, Austria, and German-influenced kindreds around the world: they are deeply rooted in the culture, and suit the needs of the time. And they exist, in some form, in the other rune rows anyway.

If you decide to use another rune row besides Armanen for divination, that's perfectly fine too. Just don't fool yourself that it's any more "historical" since runic divination itself is a modern practice, regardless of the rune row used. So long as you at least use culturally valid symbolism and meanings based on what little does survive (the non-Christianized segments of the medieval rune poems, the Hávamál, the Sagas, and the runic root-words of the Germanic tongues themselves) then it's really a matter of which rune system works best for you. Whether you prefer the Armanen system's complete "ready-to-go" set of exoteric, esoteric and reversed meanings, Listian mantras and corresponding Hávamál verses, or some other (equally reconstructed) meanings for the more "traditional" rune rows, any runic divination based in Germanic culture is an equally valid Germanic magickal practice for our present age - just don't forget that it was the Armanen masters who actually started the whole thing (for our era, at least).

And
it's a heck of a lot better than following the misleading and confused “every
rune means everything” BS that pop-spirituality charlatans try to
pass off as “ancient and authentic” by hiding behind the “Elder”
Futhark and using it as a cover to justify nearly anything
their whims can cook up.

6 comments:

Excellent Blog. "Nobody really knows anything," somebody had to say it, so Thank You! You made so many great points. I think ultimately, spending time thinking about and looking at Runes will give a person a good idea about them, appreciate the energies and lose the expectation. Even if they were only a form of basic communication- within those communications, hearts were broken, victories won and births & deaths were acknowledged. Those symbols evoked great emotion from people and that in itself is a powerful energy.

Indeed, the energies of the Runes are more powerful than most people will ever realize.

However, it's not really correct to say that "Nobody really knows anything" about Runes. We actually know quite a lot, and that's what I write about on the rest of this blog. My point is actually that while we do know a lot, there are SOME areas we don't know much about, so it's important to make clear what is KNOWN, and what is NOT KNOWN (for example we DON'T know if Celtic peoples used runes, but we do know that Germanic and Slavic peoples had several runic systems). Just as important is knowing WHERE we get our "known" information from (whether archaeological finds, linguistic links, recorded Lore, or ancient occult clan traditions, as with the Armanen runes). Even most of the modern practices of the Armanen tradition have their roots in ancient lore or inherited family traditions of ancient Germanic rune-mystics.

A lot of the "pop-runology" books on the market don't refer to ANY of these sources, but just make stuff up - either out of thin air or by copying unrelated traditions from OUTSIDE the Indo-European spectrum - yet they try to pass off these fraudulent ideas as somehow "runic". That's what I'm exposing here. We actually do know quite a bit about real Germanic Rune Magick, not all of it is "academic" but it all has deep cultural roots. There's no need to make fake stuff up (i.e. Wicca, Ralph Blum-ism, "Druid runes" etc.) when the Real Rune Magick is already working just fine for people who practice it.

I have come across a couple of books on Runes that perhaps don't fit in the above categories, that is - they weren't exactly written in a spirit of comercialism, or even disrespect to the Runic tradition, but they nevertheless speak a unfamiliar language. I am talking about the so-called 'dark Runes,' whose (practicioners and) authors try to present Odhin like some sort of a "right-hand" deity, while they themselves, in "true" Gnostic fashion, picture themselves as striving for freedom and total emancipation of consciousness.There is another relatively new book on Runes out there, one that isn't a part of the dark perspective. I tried to purchase it, but the website in question wouldn't work. The book is called RUNEN and was written by a A.D.Mercer; it treats of the Armanen Runes!

I am aware of Mercer's book "Runen" and am considering buying a copy. I've heard great things about it. It includes pairings of runes for meditating on each of the 9 realms of Yggdrasil, which is an interesting feature that I knew was always possible given there are 18 Armanen runes, as if List and Kummer or at least Spiesberger would have come up with such a thing, but apparently didn't.

Mercer adds significantly to the Armanen knowledge base and should probably be considered the next "chapter" in its development after Spiesberger, Steven Anthoniszj and Karl Welz (though you could say Welz took a BIG detour into a lot of cheesy non-runic stuff). Because Mercer published an actual book (not a PDF or a short article), he's like the new successor to Spiesberger. So I will definitely see if I can get his book.

There are also some rare Armanen books outside the major authors, like "I draw a Rune" by Ernst Radusch that are long out of print, that I might try to get a hold of. A lot of this is untranslated German material, so Mercer is a real boon for English-speakers.

As for the "dark perspective" people you mentioned, they sound totally deluded - like a bunch of "theistic satanist" losers who think every pantheon's chief is a carbon copy of Yahweh. They're missing the point; they don't understand Odin at all. Odin isn't a "right hand" deity, he doesn't want you to be a sheep or a slave. In fact, he only wants followers who can think and improve themselves!

True Left-hand paths are about becoming more like the gods as an individual, while still building a Folk and being more than a reclusive hermit. The Aesir are each unique, but they still help each other. By this definition, Asatru/Odinism as well as Armanism is ALREADY a Left-Hand path!

Right-hand paths are more about blind servitude (i.e. orthodox christianity), or even self-annihilation into a larger divine being (i.e. modern post-Brahmanic Hinduism or Mahayana Buddhism), or begging to be saved from alleged “sins”. Odin NEVER demands this of his trufolk; in fact Odin's words in the Havamal are guidance, not commandments - YOU have to choose your own path. Odin did not curse man with “original sin”, if anything, he gave man original nobility at birth! Odin already wants man to be a free and conscious being without guilt, how much more Left-Hand can you get than that?

Now granted, there are "right hand" groups that claim to be Asatru - the kind that repackage christian rituals in heathen clothing, treat the Edda like a bible, and Loki as "the devil" rather than simply an unsavory character. I would agree such groups are silly and misguided. But the "dark runers" are equally silly. They actually take the "right handers" at their word, and merely place themselves on the other side of the same lie!

As for Gnosticism, there were many types of it with different ideas, but the extreme Cathar-type gnostics we mostly read about were FAR from the Runic path in many ways (i.e. they believed that food, sex, the senses, the human body, and the entire earth are all evil, created by the demiurge, etc...) So even though Gnostics had some valid points, like seeking “wisdom” instead of blind faith, applying extreme gnostic ideas to runes and heathenry is ironically as unwise as shooting yourself in the foot. Catharism was still a christian doctrine, with many of the same neuroses as orthodox christianity.

True runers don't claim the earth is all evil. Yes there is a lot of corruption and oppression, but most of it is from a tiny minority of nepotists, and that certainly doesn't make the physical senses or human flesh evil in and of itself. The herders and their demiurge didn't create Midgard, they are not capable of that and will not be capable of much at all once a more noble folk arises. True runers are synergistic warriors of both spirit and body, not a bunch of bitter world-loathing monks with a victim complex.

There is also the brilliant work of Kari C. Tauring: "A Völva Stav Manual" that I discovered. She writes good things and explains some things about Runic energies, adding useful exercises to connect with the Nine Worlds! Her work is written from the perspective of a female Shaman - a Völva. I was a bit surprised though when I read about her participation in a Blot that included animal sacrifices. Obviously, this is "old school" shamanism, and I don't condemn it at all, at least not on moralistic grounds, but for some reason I was surprised. This may not be related directly to the Runes but - what are your thoughts, if you'd be willing to share them, on animal sacrifice in modern Norse/Asatru pratice?

Long story short, I'm not a fan of it. Not for fear of blood or any "bleeding heart" reasons, but because it is emblematic of the less noble aspects of Asatru throughout history. And when it comes to shamanism, animal sacrifices are not a part of being a Volva. Indeed, Blot itself, animal or not, is a totally separate act from seidhr, spa, or any form of shamanism. Of course a Volva can participate in Blots, but that's not what makes her a Volva.

Regarding animal sacrifice specifically, it is not something particularly praised by the Aesir (and you can use other things for Blot). It has been practiced in every culture, from the most crude to the most elegant. It was simple enough to hunt an animal and then offer a portion of the flesh to the gods. But cultures that pick out a live animal to kill in a controlled ritualized manner, usually tended to be cultures that had turned from hunting to domestication and herding - and usually stayed at that level.

The true Aryan lifestyle, in which agriculture was the base of society and culture, not nomadic herding, usually involved Blot offerings that took a lot more labor - the use ale or mead, as well as of Bread and Salt as Blot offerings to Gods and landwights in Germanic nations, was a famous case of this. Interestingly the saying "share my bread and salt" meaning "to join a folk" has equivalents in all Aryan languages today. The message then is clear; it doesn't take much to herd animals. It's a pretty lazy job - especially when compared to farming.

Thus if one wants to make the argument that offerings need to be valuable, which is REALLY more valuable to the Gods? Something you labored hard to make, or something that mostly grows fat on its own while you play scarecrow now and then? What is a more noble lifestyle, the cultivation of the land, or the denuding of it by herded beasts who then have to be moved elsewhere? What sort of culture does a herder lifestyle create, and how do they begin to view other people? As opposed to, how does farming tend to make you view people? Are people sheep, or are they more like fruit trees?

Put another way, as archetypes, it is no secret the Tanakh's authors favored "Abel" over "Cain" - the lazy herder exploiting sheep, over the industrious farmer improving the land. By contrast, our early ancestors (and the Aesir) would have favored the "Cain" archetype, or at least the Aryan equivalent. Interestingly, these two archetypes correspond historically to the neolithic Natufian culture in Palestine, which came into contact with both Aryans and Turanids at around the same time.

This is the deep sort of question you have to ask, when you wonder "what sort of offering is REALLY most precious?" That's not to deny that noble forms of Asatru can have the occasional Fehu-blot so to speak. But this is more for the energy it imparts to the participants as group ritual, rather than for the Aesir or Vanir. There is power in it - but when you look at what the Gods are patrons of, particularly Freyr, Idunna, Ostara, Hulda, etc. you see a lot of farming, and not much in the way of animal sacrifices. As group ritual I don't deny that animal sacrifice can have a powerful effect. The Uralians and Cro-Magnons had no problem sacrificing animals either. But neither of them were Asatru/Asha-Daru, let alone Aryan of heart.

In Germanic society, especially among farmers and warriors, there were of course plenty of blood sacrifices. Go back far enough and my ancestors did the same, even horses were sacrificed for the really powerful chiefs. But animal sacrifices were almost absent among the Armanen. If you were an Arman or Arkona, the blood you sacrificed (if you chose that option) was your own blood. An Arman had to give of himself, either in work or in blood, as Odin gave of himself to gain knowledge, and could not merely rely on sacrificing animals to achieve ritual energy activation.

About Me

For Newcomers

This blog is a research project into rune-lore and rune-magick. Any information here is esoteric history from sources rarely exposed to the light of day, and does not reflect the personal opinions of the author. This blog promotes the revival of Runes and beautiful Indo-European culture. Nothing more, nothing less.